Fiscal cliff: All talk, no deal-making

President Barack Obama wants to fix the debt problem and stop the nation from falling off a fiscal cliff. So does Mitt Romney. And John Boehner. And Paul Ryan. And Joe Biden, too.

They all said as much at the Republican and Democratic national conventions and accused their opponents of lacking the guts to pick a plan and make it stick.

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So it would make sense that while they were talking, their aides and allies were meeting behind the scenes to steer away from that fast-approaching cliff, right?

Wrong.

The truth is that none of the top leaders or their aides are in serious negotiations. This leaves the key players simply pointing fingers and praying that voters clarify Washington’s power structure in November in a way that favors Republican entitlement cuts or Democratic tax hikes. The winners at the ballot box will get to set the terms, the thinking goes. Until then, don’t give an inch.

The only lawmakers negotiating right now belong to the Senate’s Gang of Eight, a salon of solvency hawks with little sway so far. They meet this week at 5 p.m. Tuesday. But their group has been huddling for months with little to show for it, and the real players — Obama, House Speaker Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) — aren’t engaged, and neither are the staffers who do the heavy lifting on legislative deals.

Boehner and Reid haven’t had any recent talks about the fiscal cliff. The last time they spoke in person was in June, when they negotiated a deal on the highway bill, according to an aide. The pending budget cuts, known as “sequestration,” weren’t on the agenda, and neither were the expiring tax cuts. Likewise, Obama and Boehner haven’t huddled since May 16, when congressional leadership snacked on Taylor Gourmet sandwiches at the White House.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) has no plans to talk with his Democratic colleagues to prevent budget cuts from hitting the Pentagon. He wants a plan from them before sitting down.

“He’s said we have put a solution on the table, put yours on the table, no vagaries about Republicans [not considering revenue]. If you want it to be all revenue, do it. Put it on the table, let’s get into a conference situation and work it out,” a Republican aide said.

House Republicans note that they are the only ones who have passed a plan to stop the cuts — although Democrats would never go along with it. A Boehner spokesman told POLITICO that Republicans have been “rebuffed at every opportunity” to stop the defense cuts and tax hikes.

Even if something bubbled up from the Gang of Eight in the Senate or from the rank and file in the House, there’s no indication that party leaders would embrace a bipartisan deal.

“We have tried and we have talked to Democrats and I know many members have different [ways of solving the problems],” House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said. “Unfortunately, the president says he won’t deal with this until after the election. That in part puts a little stopgap and makes it a little more difficult. But we have been trying to push the issue, and on the Senate side we’ve seen bipartisan members coming together, talking about it. [Defense Secretary Leon] Panetta has made comments about what this would do. There is a will out there to get something. Always in these situations, you need some leadership, and I think if the White House showed a little leadership, we can get this done very quickly.”